Ballpoint Pen History - Invention of the Ballpoint Pen . BALLPOINT PEN The first great success for the ballpoint pen came on an October morning in 1945 when a crowd of over 5,000 people jammed the entrance of New Yorks Gimbels Department Store. The day before, Gimbels had taken out a full-page ad in the New York Times promoting the first sale of ballpoints in the United States. The ad described the new pen as a "fantastic... miraculous fountain pen ... guaranteed to write for two years without refilling!" On that first day of sales, Gimbels sold out its entire stock of 10,000 pens-at $12.50 each! Actually, this "new" pen wasn't new at all and didn't work much better than ballpoint pens that had been produced ten years earlier. The story begins in 1888 when John Loud, an American leather tanner, patented a roller-ball-tip marking pen. Louds invention featured a reservoir of ink and a roller ball that applied the thick ink to leather hides.

John Louds pen was never produced, nor were any of the other 350 patents for ball-type pens issued over the next thirty years. The major problem was the ink - if the ink was thin the pens leaked, and if it was too thick, they clogged. Depending on the temperature, the pen would sometimes do both. The next stage of development came almost fifty years after Louds patent, with an improved version invented in Hungary in 1935 by Ladislas Biro and his brother, Georg. Ladislas Biro was very talented and confident of his abilities, but he had never had a pursuit that kept his interest and earned him a good living. He had studied medicine, art, and hypnotism, and in 1935 he was editing a small newspaper-where he was frustrated by the amount of time he wasted filling fountain pens and cleaning up ink smudges. Besides that, the sharp tip of his fountain pen often scratched or tore through the newsprint (paper). Determined to develop a better pen, Ladislas and Georg (who was a chemist) set about making models of new designs and formulating better inks to use in them.

One summer day while vacationing at the seashore, the Biro brothers met an interesting elderly gentleman, Augustine Justo, who happened to be the president of Argentina. After the brothers showed him their model of a ballpoint pen, President Justo urged them to set up a factory in Argentina. When World War II broke out in Europe, a few years later, the Biros fled to Argentina, stopping in Paris along the way to patent their pen. Once in Argentina, the Biros found several investors willing to finance their invention, and in 1943 they had set up a manufacturing plant. Unfortunately, the pens were a spectacular failure. The Biro pen, like the designs that had preceded it, depended on gravity for the ink to flow to the roller ball. This meant that the pens worked only when they were held more or less straight up, and even then the ink flow was sometimes too heavy, leaving smudgy globs on the paper. The Biro brothers returned to their laboratory and devised a new design, which relied on "capillsry action" rather than gravity to feed the ink.

The rough "ball" at the end of the pen acted like a metal sponge, and with this improvement ink could flow more smoothly to the ball, and the pen could be held at a slant rather than straight up. One year later, the Biros were selling their new, improved ballpoint pen throughout Argentina. But it still was not a smashing success, and the men ran out of money. The greatest interest in the ballpoint pen came from American flyers who had been to Argentina during World War II. Apparently it was ideal for pilots because it would work well at high altitudes and, unlike fountain pens, did not have to be refilled frequently. The U.S. Department of State sent specifications to several American pen manufacturers asking them to develop a similar pen. In an attempt to corner the market, the Eberhard Faber Company paid the Biro brothers $500,000 for the rights to manufacture their ballpoint pen in the United States. Eberhard Faber later sold its rights to the Eversharp Company, but neither was quick about putting a ballpoint pen on the market. There were still too many bugs in the Biro design.

Meanwhile, in a surprise move, a fifty-four-year-old Chicago salesman named Milton Reynolds became the first American manufacturer to market a ballpoint pen successfully. While vacationing in Argentina, Reynolds had seen Biros pen in the stores and thought that the novel product would sell well in America. Because many of the patents had expired, Reynolds thought he could avoid any legal problems, and so he went about copying much of the Biros design. It was Reynolds who made the deal with Gimbels to be the first retail store in America to sell ballpoint pens. He set up a makeshift factory with 300 workers who began stamping out pens from whatever aluminum was not being used for the war. In the months that followed, Reynolds made millions of pens and became fairly wealthy, as did many other manufacturers who decided to cash in on the new interest. The competition among pen manufacturers during the mid-1940s became quite hectic, with each one claiming new and better features. Reynolds even claimed that his ballpoint could write under water, and he hired Esther Williams, the swimmer and movie star, to help prove it.

Another manufacturer claimed that its pen would write through ten carbon copies, while still another demonstrated that its pen would write up-side down. However, the effect of the slogans and advertising wore off as soon as the owners discovered the many problems that still existed with the ballpoint pens. As the sale of the pens began to drop, so did the price, and the once expensive luxury now would not even sell for as little as 19 cents. Once again, it looked as if the ballpoint pen would be a complete failure. For the pen to regain the publics favor and trust, somebody would have to invent one that was smooth writing, quick drying, nonskipping, nonfading, and most important didnt leak. Two men, each with his own pen company, delivered these results. The first was Patrick J. Frawley Jr. Frawley met Fran Seech, an unemployed Los Angeles chemist who had lost his job when the ballpoint pen company he was working for had gone out of business. Seech had been working on improvements in ballpoint ink, and on his own he continued his experiments in a tiny cubbyhole home laboratory.

Frawley was so impressed with his work that he bought Seechs new ink formula in 1949 and started the Frawley Pen Company. Within one year, Frawley was in the ballpoint pen business with yet another improved model-the first pen with a retractable ballpoint tip and the first with no-smear ink. To overcome many of the old prejudices against the leaky and smeary ballpoint pen of the past, Frawley initiated an imaginative and risky advertising campaign, a promotion he called Project Normandy. Frawley instructed his salesmen to barge into the offices of retail store buyers and scribble all over the executives shirts with one of the new pens. Then the salesman would offer to replace the shirt with an even more expensive one if the ink did not wash out entirely. The shirts did come clean and the promotion worked. As more and more retailers accepted the pen, which Frawley named the "Papermate," sales began to skyrocket. Within a few years, the Papermate pen was selling in the hundreds of millions. The other man to bring the ballpoint pen successfully back to life was Marcel Bich, a French manufacturer of penholders and pen cases.

Bich was appalled at the poor quality of the ballpoint pens he had seen and he was also shocked at their high cost. But he recognized that the ballpoint was a firmly established innovation and he resolved to design a high-quality pen at a low price that would scoop the market. He went to the Biro brothers and arranged to pay them a royalty on their patent. Then for two years Marcel Bich studied the detailed construction of every ballpoint pen on the market, often working with a microscope. By 1952 Bich was ready to introduce his new wonder: a clear-barreled, smooth-writing, non-leaky, inexpensive ballpoint pen he called the "Ballpoint Bic." The ballpoint pen had finally become a practical writing instrument. The public accepted it without complaint, and today it is as standard a writing implement as the pencil. In England, they are still called Biros, and many Bic models also say "Biro" on the side of the pen, as a testament to their primary inventors.

TO LEARN MORE by Allyn Freeman, Bob Golden (Contributor) / Paperback - 224 pages (1997) / John Wiley & Sons Inventions chronicles the odd origins of famous products, explores how these inventions changed our lives, and reveals the business side of their production and distribution. When Giants Stumble: Classic Business Blunders and How to Avoid Them by Robert Sobel / Hardcover 256 pages / Diane Pub Co (May 1, 1999) Robert Sobel offers a fascinating look at 15 glaring and enlightening product flops and management foibles. Rather than call attention to corporate greed or foolishness, the author reveals surprisingly sound reasoning behind some of the worst moves in modern business history ON THE WEB: This web site has something for everyone - kids, parents and teachers. (URL: America's oldest manufacturer of fine writing instruments was established in 1846. (URL: Official web site Bic Pen with lots to do. (URL: In 1949, the pen industry witnessed a major technological breakthrough. The Frawley Pen Company developed a revolutionary new ink, which dried instantly. The pen that delivered this ink was called the Paper Mate.

(URL: Past, present and future, Pentel offers superior quality, innovative products and the maximum value for every dollar spent. (URL: While on a business trip to Buenos Aires in 1945 Reynolds came upon an early ballpoint pen invented by Ladislas Biro, a Hungarian journalist. (URL: lcb1.uoregon.edu/jmellis/finl311/pens.htm) This site from one of the leading international manufacturers of high-quality writing, drawing and coloring instruments as much to see and do. (URL: Everybody is familiar with the ballpoint pen. But how many of us know the story behind this convenient writing implement or the name of its inventor? (URL: ASME Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark The ballpoint pen developed by Ladislas Biro in 1943, which served as the design standard for the practical and low-priced writing instruments that flooded the world market in later years, was named an ASME Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark at a ceremony held Sept.

29, 2005, in Buenos Aires, Argentina (URL: HOW IT WORKS: Hungarian journalist Ladislas Biro, noticed the type of ink used in newspaper printing presses dried quickly leaving the paper dry and smudge free. He decided to create a pen using the same ink. The thicker ink would not flow from a regular pen nib so Biro devised a new point by fitting his pen with a tiny ball bearing at its tip. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated, picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on the paper. DID YOU KNOW?: The principle of the ball point pen actually dates to 1888 when a patent was taken out by John J. Loud for a product to mark leather, however this patent was not exploited commercially.

Biro first patented the pen in 1938 and applied for a fresh patent in Argentina on June 10, 1943 (Ladislo and his brother Georg emigrated to Argentina in 1940.) The licensing rights to this patent were bought by the British Government for the war effort, the British Royal Air Force needed a new type of pen, one that would not leak at high altitudes in fighter planes like the fountain pen did. Their successful performance for the air force brought the Biro pen into the limelight. Commercially ball point pens were sold first in Buenos Aires in 1945 by Eterpen Co. Biro had forgotten to get a U.S. Patent and so even with the end of World War II, the Battle of the Ballpoint Pen was just beginning. Reference Sources in BOLD Type This page revised May 5, 2006.

FEATURED The Story of László Bíró, the Man Who Invented the Ballpoint Pen | Smart News | Smithsonian The Story of László Bíró, the Man Who Invented the Ballpoint Pen László Bíró first sold the ballpoint pen in 1938, just before the onset of WWII Photo: Micha The pen may be mightier than the sword, but when Jewish-Hungarian journalist László Bíró invented the ballpoint pen in the 1930s clichéd sayings were probably the last thing on his mind. In 1938, says the Wall Street Journal , “a simple but remarkable invention came into a world about to be convulsed by death and destruction.” In their review of György Moldova’s book Ballpoint , which chronicles the life of Bíró, the Journal says, We see Bíró refining the pen and experimenting with recipes for the ink paste essential to his concept while fleeing dangers that seemed to chase him across Europe as war brewed and then broke out. In the early 1930s, while working as a journalist and artist, Bíró noticed that newspaper ink dried much more quickly than that from a fountain pen.

The stylistic writing of a fountain pen uses liquid ink, which needs to flow from the tip to the page. The quick-drying ink used by printing presses was too thick to drip. Contemplating the problem of how to deliver thick, quick-drying ink to a paper surface without requiring the ink to flow, Bíró saw a possible answer: closing the end of the pen instead of using a nib, leaving an opening with just enough room for a tiny metal ball that would spin against the ink in the reservoir, distributing it to the paper. The basic design of the ballpoint pen persists to this day, but Bíró’s financial stake did not last nearly so long. In the years that followed, the inventor slowly lost shares in his company. t one point he had to choose between keeping his remaining shares or selling them to help his family flee to Argentina. Understandably, he had no regrets about bartering to save lives. Yet Mr. Moldova rightly emphasizes the ultimate irony that “the inventor who conducted the thousands of experiments needed to perfect the ballpoint pen ended up without a penny of stock in the factory where they had taken place.” Inventors, beware! Who Invented the Pen?

History of Ball Point Pen Invention Invention Story of Ball Point Pen Written By: Samidha Verma Every invention has a story which sizzles right behind the scenes. Ball Pen is also one invention, which though is of huge importance, yet not many know where it originated from. The history of the pen can be traced back to 1880s, when the first patent on a ball pen was issued to John Loud. This leather tanner attempted to make a writing object with which he could write on the leather he tanned. The pen, he had invented, constituted of a rotating steel ball as the tip held in a socket. It could write on the leather as intended by Loud. However, the invention proved futile for others as it proved way too coarse and messy for letter writing; so was disapproved commercially. The original patent lapsed with the failure of this invention on the grounds of practicality and usability. The second innings for the ball pen was in the making and it all began again with the first and very famous stylized fountain pen. Invented by Cross, the fountain pen is identified as daddy to the ball pens. This invention triggered more of brainstorming that lasted till ball pen was born.

Laszlo Jozsef Biro, a native of Budapest owns the patent of the ball pen to his name. What he had invented was a ball pen that contained ink cartridge in the pressurized form. A journalist named Biro took no time in noticing the quick drying capability of the ink used in the newspapers, and thought that if the same ink was utilized in a pen that smudged letters problem could be resolved. Being a proof reader, Biro had to refill his fountain pen from an ink bottle incessantly and this drove him crazy at times. In the beginning of 1930s, along with his brother Georg, a chemist, Biro began with the experiment of a pen that would not need to be refilled and at the same time would not smudge the pages too. The concept revolved around a ball which was used on the tip of the pen and as this pen was moved on the paper, the ball would rotate pulling the ink from the cartridge. This time, the design of the pen was acclimatized with practicality and hence, the two brothers used a sealed reservoir which would store the ink inside the pen. In terms of consistency too, the ink was changed to thicker and quick drying ink.

As the designing flaws were bid goodbye, Laszlo Biro was issued a patent to the pen in the year 1938. It could well be summed up, that even though Laszlo was not the first inventor of a ball pen; he was however, the successful inventor of a working design of ball pen which is now universally acceptable. The story doesn't end here; in the year 1943, the two brothers began their quest for getting their invention worldwide recognition as well as financial support. They moved to Argentina and discovered someone who willingly financed the Birome pen and in no time, a factory was started to manufacture more ball pens. The ball pen was initially advertised as the only pen which could write even under the water. There were demonstrations witnessed by huge audiences, plenty of those who longed to write with the ball pen under the water. The company led by Biro became the leading producers of ball pens. The British soon caught wind of it and fascinated by the qualities of the ball pen, they bought the patent. The company was thus, sold to BIC Corporation who started producing and supplying pens to the Royal Air Force.

Biro pens were considered highly useful for the pilots as they could write even in the pressure of high altitudes. This was also a major breakthrough for the ball pen that faced huge rivalry from the fountain pen as initially it was marked as a useful and fashionable accessory, but then being used at high altitudes added to the technological specification of the pen. At a much reduced price, the ball pen made a foray into the British market. Laszlo Biro, the inventor continued his display of entrepreneurial flair and managed to secure significant financial scores to his name, however, he soon lost the Biro Company to Henry Martin who took over the production of ball pen from Laszlo Biro. Martin made the ball pen an established name (Biro Swan) in the market, but the credentials to bring ball pen to the position that it enjoys today, go to Marcel Bich. He founded a company that manufactured his own patented ball pen designs. BIC Cristal, that directly succeeded Biro, enjoys the largest share in the market today. Pen had discovered a market for itself a lot earlier, but the quality practices which underwent in making the ball pen as perfect as it is today are owed to Bich who established the ball pen high on the international benchmarks.

Ever since then, the ball pen has been evolving and a lot has been added to the history of pens. Today, ball pens are manufactured in almost every country. What goes in their making is also a well defined geographical needs criterion to ensure that the ink viscosity and tip tolerances are as per the environment, where the pens are meant to be used. The present scenario is such that the market is flooded with pens in unlimited varieties, designs and colors. It is a “choose as you may” situation for the users. Ranging from handcrafted ball pens to simple and sober ones, you will find them all in a variety unimaginable. Ever wondered, such a small item has given the world so much. A small invention has now become an indispensable part of our lives. It might not be the most technologically high-end instrument, but probably one of the most essential ones, one we can’t do without. How many times have you complained your pen got stolen? That is just because a lot of us need them in our everyday lives. Whether to a student or a business man, pen is highly useful tool. Who invented the ballpoint pen? | Reference.com Who invented the ballpoint pen?

A: Quick Answer The ballpoint pen was invented by Laszlo Biro in the 1930s, who was a Jewish-Hungarian journalist. During his time editing newspapers, he became very frustrated with the amount of smudging that the fountain pen caused. This made Biro determined to design a more practical pen. Full Answer Biro used thicker ink and the sphere at the end of the pen, which allowed the ink to flow onto the paper more smoothly. His design is still used today. In the late 1800s, a man named John Loud filed a patent for a similar ballpoint pen design, but it was unsuccessful. Biro's design became successful because fighter pilots during World War II needed more efficient pens that didn't leak. Laszlo Biro moved to Argentina to escape the war and found investors that eventually led to the mass production of ballpoint pens. The Evolution of Modern Ballpoint Pen: A Patent History - IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Patent Law Subscribe to our Blog via email The Evolution of Modern Ballpoint Pen: A Patent History Print Article László Jozsef Bíró, the inventor of the ballpoint pen.

If any one product were to sell at the incredible rate of 57 units per second over the course of a year, it would have to be considered one of the most commercially successful consumer products of all time. That consistent level of high sales may seem impossible, but that was exactly the rate at which ballpoint pens were sold around the world during 2006 . The ballpoint pen is so readily available and cheap that it’s impossible not to take for granted that at one time, jotting down a quick note used to be a much more complex process than whipping a pen out of your pocket and maybe fumbling with the cap for a moment or two. At worst, the pen’s ink might have run out, but for most consumers a replacement or twenty is within close reach. Today, we return to our Evolution of Technology series to profile the development of a writing utensil, which most of our readers are likely carrying on them as they peruse this column.

The ballpoint pen as we know it has changed slightly over the years, but most of the significant developments involving the ballpoint pen can be traced to Hungarian inventor László Jozsef Bíró , a 2007 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame . There are some fascinating aspects to the story of the ballpoint pen: it enabled the escape of its inventor from Nazi Germany and has an interesting marketing history in the United States. Below, we explore the development history of this simple yet incredibly practical writing tool and profile some of the important patents issued to pen innovators along the way. Pen Developments in the Days Before Ballpoint From U.S. Patent No. 232804, titled “Stylographic Pen.” Bíró was not the first inventor to conceive the use of a rolling ball in socket mechanism for an ink writing utensil. By the latter part of the 19th century, a few designs for this type of utensil would be developed and even patent-protected by their inventors. Although none of these became truly commercially successful, they’re all important stepping stones towards what would eventually become one of the most purchased and utilized products ever created.

Before the ballpoint pen came into fashion, the fountain pen was used to draw ink from an internal reservoir so that a person could write or draw on a piece of paper or another surface. In the late 1870s, an inventor from Rhode Island was putting the finishing touches on a stylographic fountain pen , a type of pen which utilized a wire to act as a valve in applying ink to paper. In October 1880 that inventor, Alonzo T. Cross, was issued U.S. Patent No. 232804 , issued under the title Stylographic Pen. This innovation provided a screw-plug to prevent users from filling ink into an air tube included in the pen’s housing and used the motion of air bubbles moving from the air tube into the ink chamber to force ink through to the point of the pen. From U.S. Patent No. 293545, simply titled “Fountain Pen.” Another fountain pen innovation from the period was found in U.S. Patent No. 293545 , simply titled Fountain Pen. Issued to Lewis E.

Waterman of Brooklyn, NY, the patent claims an ink-duct for a fountain pen consisting of a bar with a longitudinal groove which is accompanied by a series of longitudinal fissures. An increased air influx provided by the groove is intended to prevent ink from flowing excessively when a pen is in motion. Ballpoint pens were constructed decades before Bíró created his writing utensil. We found multiple sources crediting American John Loud with the creation of a ballpoint writing apparatus for marking leather as perhaps the first ballpoint pen. Loud’s design can be explored in U.S. Patent No. 392046 , entitled Pen. The patent issued to the inventor, who was based in Weymouth, MA, claims a pen with a spheroidal marking point capable of revolving in all directions for applying ink to rough surfaces, including wool and coarse wrapping paper. Other inventors are also discussed in the history of the ballpoint pen’s evolution, but even those that were patented were unable to reach mass commercial appeal.

László Jozsef Bíró and the Modern Ballpoint Pen It should be noted that Bíró, a man whose name has become synonymous with his invention in certain parts of the world , never profited much from his invention either, although it would benefit him and his family in a time of great need. The larger context of world turmoil in the late 1930s provides an interesting backdrop for the story of a Jewish man from Hungary who would create a tool that helped British Royal Air Force pilots turn the tide of World War II. In his life, Bíró had many talents and studied medicine and art before entering a professional career as the editor of a newspaper with a fairly small circulation. When taking notes as a journalist, Bíró was forced to use fountain pens which had a number of shortcomings, especially smudging, which could render a passage of text unreadable. However, Bíró noted that the newspapers printed by his publisher didn’t have the same problem ; the ink dried and set much faster when using these presses. From U.S. Patent No. 2390636, which is titled “Writing Instrument.” The inventor’s first idea was to apply the ink used to published newsprint to a fountain pen for writing.

The issue arose that the newspaper print ink was very thick and viscous, making it difficult to flow evenly through the pen’s tip. To conceive the next great innovation in personal writing utensils, László would enlist the help of his brother Georg, a chemist. The tool they developed was comprised of a pen with a metal ball bearing at the tip, which applied the ink onto paper and other surfaces. On December 11th, 1945, Bíró was issued U.S. Patent No. 2390636 , which is titled Writing Instrument, to protect his innovation. It claims a writing instrument with a reservoir for charging dense ink as well as an air intake and a free ball tip. This invention did away with the problem of ink evaporation which requires frequent refilling of the ink chamber. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that the invention of the ballpoint pen likely saved the lives of Bíró and his family . During a vacation one summer after having created the first pen, Bíró met Augustín Pedro Justo, a fellow vacationer who happened to be the president of Argentina at the time.

Justo was so taken by Bíró’s innovation that he urged him to consider building and commercializing his invention in Argentina. When anti-Jewish laws went into effect in Hungary in 1938, Bíró fled to Paris and eventually wound up in Argentina with his brother and other members of his family. Bíró would successfully apply for patents protecting his ballpoint pen in Argentina, Budapest and Switzerland along with the United States, and his product was first commercially marketed in 1944. Commercially, however, Bíró’s design would not reach mass appeal. This first ballpoint pen relied on gravity to draw ink towards the tip, requiring the user to hold the pen perfectly upright in order to write. Again with the help of his brother George, László was able to develop a pen which used capillary action to draw the ink towards the tip. A rough ball in the tip sponged up the ink and applied it evenly to a surface without the use of gravity. Although not a huge commercial success, Bíró’s innovation would attract the attentions of some of the major powers of World War II.

A British clerk familiar with the ballpoint pen suggested that airplane navigators, who often have to make marks on maps while flying high above the ground, would benefit from the use of this improved pen; high altitudes reduced the effectiveness of fountain pens as more pressure was needed to apply ink to the paper. The British Royal Air Force would order the first bulk supply of 30,000 of Bíró’s pens and the success of British fighter planes in the war, along with the ease of map marking offered by the ballpoint pen, got plenty of others interested in developing their own ballpoint pen designs. The Ballpoint Pen Permeates Daily Life (Images: ball point pen.png; ball point pen 527.png) The writing utensil developed by the Bírós still had plenty of shortcomings. Consumers in markets worldwide who took to the device were mainly discouraged by the pen’s ability to leak and ruin clothing, although an inability to write smoothly and consistently was another source of consternation. This is a major reason why the Eversharp Company, which bought the rights to commercially manufacture Bíró’s invention in the United States, encountered too many issues to enter mass production.

A bit of intellectual property thievery would establish the next round of innovation in ballpoint writing utensils. In 1945 Milton Reynolds, an American businessman from Chicago, visited Argentina on a trip and bought some of Bíró’s pens. In the face of the patent rights held by Eversharp, Reynolds was able to copy most of Bíró’s design and licensed the Reynold’s Rocket for sale through Gimbels , a renowned department store in New York City. In October 1945, Gimbel’s unveiled the Reynold’s Rocket and sold thousands of them within days at what seem to be exorbitant prices for a pen today; multiple sources claim original retail prices ranging from $9.75 to $12.50. Design issues surrounding leaking inks continued and the price of the item quickly dropped to a small fraction of its original price, some sources stating as low as 19 cents. From U.S. Patent No. 2734484, entitled “Ball Point Pen.” After Reynolds, the next major names in the development of ballpoint pens are Patrick J. Frawley, Jr. and Fran Seech.

Seech was an unemployed chemist but had been working for a ballpoint pen company to develop improved ink compositions. Frawley paid Seech for the ink formula he had developed at that time and founded the Frawley Pen Company in 1949. Along with Seech’s innovations, Frawley’s business knowledge and audacity enabled the company to change popular perceptions of leaky, messy ballpoint pens rather quickly. In particular, Frawley was able to change minds with his Project Normandy campaign. In this campaign, salespeople were trained to barge into the offices of store buyers and even executives and scribble on their shirts with Frawley’s pens . Immediately angered, the buyers and executives were told by the Frawley sales team that if the pen’s ink didn’t wash out, Frawley would replace the shirt with an even more expensive one. When the shirts inevitably came back clean after they were washed, overcoming one of the expensive shortcomings of previous ballpoint pens, retail buyers started stocking Frawley’s pens. We did find a patent for a pen assigned to the Frawley Corporation, U.S. Patent No. 2734484 , entitled Ball Point Pen. Invented by John F.

O’Sullivan, the ball point writing mechanism claimed by the patent included a tabular writing cartridge with an ink reservoir, the cartridge being loosely for sliding movement from an enclosed carrying position to an exposed writing position. This system for retracting the ball point into the housing of the pen was designed to enable users to cleanly transport the pen while eliminating the need for a pen cap, which can get lost. Perhaps the most famous iteration of the ballpoint pen, and the one that is still sold today by the millions, is the utensil developed by Marcel Bich, who would eventually found the BIC Corporation to market his version. It was Bich who realized that improvements in quality could be achieved while also achieving mass production of the pen so that pens could be sold at a much lower price. Bich actually licensed the technology developed by the brothers Bíró and began selling the BIC version in the early 1950s. Even though leaks still occur and exploding ink cartridges still ruin a pants pocket here and there, this is the version which has reached ubiquity in our world. Bich was able to successfully petition the USPTO for a couple of design patents, such as U.S. Patent No.

D204527 , also titled Ball Point Pen. The Author Steve Brachmann is a writer located in Buffalo, New York. He has worked professionally as a freelancer for more than a decade. He has become a regular contributor to IPWatchdog.com, writing about technology, innovation and is the primary author of the Companies We Follow series. His work has been published by The Buffalo News, The Hamburg Sun, USAToday.com, Chron.com, Motley Fool and OpenLettersMonthly.com. Steve also provides website copy and documents for various business clients. Posted In: Consumer Products , Evolution of Technology , Famous Inventors , IPWatchdog.com Articles , Patents , Technology & Innovation Warning & Disclaimer: The pages, articles and comments on IPWatchdog.com do not constitute legal advice, nor do they create any attorney-client relationship. The articles published express the personal opinion and views of the author and should not be attributed to the author’s employer, clients or the sponsors of IPWatchdog.com. Read more . Discuss this There are currently No Comments comments. Varsity Sponsors The History of Laszlo Biro and Ballpoint Pens By Mary Bellis Updated August 26, 2016.

"No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had." Samuel Johnson. A Hungarian journalist named Laszlo Biro invented the first ballpoint pen in 1938. Biro had noticed that the ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper smudge-free, so he decided to create a pen using the same type of ink. But the thicker ink wouldn't flow from a regular pen nib. Biro had to devise a new type of point. He did so by fitting his pen with a tiny ball bearing in its tip. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated, picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on the paper. Biro's Patents This principle of the ballpoint pen actually dates back to an 1888 patent owned by John Loud for a product designed to mark leather, but this patent was commercially unexploited. Biro first patented his pen in 1938 and he applied for another patent in June 1943 in Argentina after he and his brother emigrated there in 1940. The British government bought the licensing rights to Biro’s patent during World War II.

The British Royal Air Force needed a new pen that would not leak at higher altitudes in fighter planes the way fountain pens did. The ballpoint’s successful performance for the Air Force brought Biro’s pens into the limelight. Unfortunately, Biro had never gotten a U.S. patent for his pen, so another battle was just beginning even as World War II ended. The Battle of the Ballpoint Pens A lot of improvements were made to pens in general over the years, leading to a battle over the rights to Biro's invention. The newly-formed Eterpen Company in Argentina commercialized the Biro pen after the Biro brothers received their patents there. The press hailed the success of their writing tool because it could write for a year without refilling. Then, in May 1945, Eversharp Company teamed up with Eberhard-Faber to acquire exclusive rights to Biro Pens of Argentina. The pen was rebranded as the “Eversharp CA,” which stood for “capillary action.” It was released to the press months in advance of public sales.

Less than a month after Eversharp/Eberhard closed the deal with Eterpen, a Chicago businessman, Milton Reynolds, visited Buenos Aires in June 1945. He noticed the Biro pen while he was in a store and recognized the pen’s sales potential. He bought a few as samples and returned to America to launch the Reynolds International Pen Company, ignoring Eversharp’s patent rights. Reynolds copied the Biro pen within four months and began to sell his product by the end of October 1945. He called it "Reynolds Rocket" at made it available at Gimbel’s department store in New York City. Reynolds’ imitation beat Eversharp to market and it was immediately successful. Priced at $12.50 each, $100,000 worth of pens sold their first day on the market. Britain was not far behind. The Miles-Martin Pen Company sold the first ballpoint pens to the public there at Christmas 1945. The Ballpoint Pen Becomes a Fad Ballpoint pens were guaranteed to write for two years without refilling and sellers claimed they were smear-proof.

Reynolds advertised his pen as one that could "write under water." Then Eversharp sued Reynolds for copying the design that Eversharp had acquired legally. The 1888 patent by John Loud would have invalidated everyone's claims, but no one knew that at the time. Sales skyrocketed for both competitors, but Reynolds’ pen tended to leak and skip. It often failed to write. Eversharp’s pen did not live up to its own advertisements either. A very high volume of pen returns occurred for both Eversharp and Reynolds. The ballpoint pen fad ended due to consumer unhappiness. Frequent price wars, poor quality products and heavy advertising costs hurt both companies by 1948. Sales nosedived. The original $12.50 asking price dropped to less than 50 cents per pen. The Jotter Meanwhile, fountain pens experienced a resurgence of their old popularity as Reynolds’ company folded. Then Parker Pens introduced its first ballpoint pen, the Jotter, in January 1954. The Jotter wrote five times longer than the Eversharp or Reynolds pens.

It had a variety of point sizes, a rotating cartridge and large-capacity ink refills. Best of all, it worked. Parker sold 3.5 million Jotters at prices from $2.95 to $8.75 in less than a year. The Ballpoint Pen Battle Is Won By 1957, Parker had introduced the tungsten carbide textured ball bearing in their ballpoint pens. Eversharp was in deep financial trouble and tried to switch back to selling fountain pens. The company sold its pen division to Parker Pens and Eversharp finally liquidated its assets in the 1960s. Then Came Bic The French Baron Bich dropped the ‘H’ from his name and began selling pens called BICs in 1950. By the late fifties, BIC® held 70 percent of European market. BIC bought 60 percent of the New York-based Waterman Pens in 1958, and it owned 100 percent of Waterman Pens by 1960. The company sold ballpoint pens in U.S. for 29 cents up to 69 cents.

Ballpoint Pens Today BIC® dominates the market in the 21st century. Parker, Sheaffer and Waterman capture smaller upscale markets of fountain pens and expensive ballpoints. The highly popular modern version of Laszlo Biro's pen, the BIC Crystal, has a daily worldwide sales figure of 14 million pieces. Biro is still the generic name used for the ballpoint pen used in most of the world.

Question: Who invented the ball-point pen?
Answer: Laszlo Biro